ABSTRACT
Teaching the history of geotechnical engineering gives an opportunity to draw the students attention, to show them the constant evolution and relativity of knowledge, to illustrate the role of observation and experimental analyses in the activities of engineers and to help the students in understanding the particularities of geotechnical engineering with respect to mathematical and mechanical sciences, which often seduce the students by their formal perfection. The paper first examines the information sources on the history of geotechnical engineering and the links between its evolution and the general technical progress. In a second part, examples of the historical development of calculation methods for the bearing capacity of piles, of the theory of dynamic consolidation and of the computation of pressures on structures are presented.
